With starvation looming in Niger, UN launches emergency food airlift

With the international humanitarian response to looming starvation in Niger gathering pace, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today a series of airlifts to deliver life-saving emergency rations to 80,000 victims of the impoverished West African country's intensifying emergency.

“Whether it's by air, land or sea, the food cannot arrive a moment too soon. We are working flat out to deliver rations and help provide relief for some of the worst hunger I have ever witnessed,” said Giancarlo Cirri, WFP Country Director for Niger, which has suffered the double blow of a poor rainy season and devastation to its crops and grazing land from the worst locust invasion in 15 years.

With 1.2 million people at risk of starvation and food stocks dwindling, WFP's logistics operation has five weeks to deliver 23,000 tons of food to 19 districts on the frontline of the country's second-worst hunger crisis in history. As Niger's food shortages stretch traditional coping mechanisms to their limit, these numbers could grow even bigger.

The first aircraft will take off Thursday morning from WFP's humanitarian response depot in Brindisi, Italy, delivering 44 tons of high-energy biscuits to Niger's capital Niamey, the first of three that WFP is sending to Niamey over the coming days. The cargo will also include mobile warehouses, generators and 4x4 vehicles.

From Niamey a convoy of trucks will carry the biscuits along the 660-kilometre desert road to Maradi in the south, one of the hardest hit areas of the country. Starting 1, WFP is also planning a series of airlifts to shift 200 tons of Corn Soya Blend, used in supplementary feeding, direct from Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire to Niamey.

WFP alerted donors to the growing need for emergency aid as far back as November 2004, but until recently the international community failed to heed warnings from humanitarian organizations that the prolonged drought and locust infestation had left some 2.5 million people on the brink of starvation.

In the past week, media images of the devastating human consequences of what was earlier called Niger's “Silent Emergency" have finally galvanized the donor community. WFP's logistics operation is intensifying efforts to deliver the growing influx of emergency food aid to the landlocked country.

Earlier this week, a 25-strong convoy of lorries loaded with 996 tons of rice and 550 tons of pulses – vital components in WFP's food rations – set-off along the 800-kilometre road from the port of Lome in Togo to Niamey – a five-day journey. In total, over 2,000 tons of food is currently on the road to WFP's non-governmental organization partners (NGOs) who are distributing the food to the worst-affected areas.

“We're talking about huge distances but the transport network is relatively good. The real problem has not been getting the food to the hungry but getting the donations to pay for the food,” WFP's chief logistics officer Pierre Carrasse said.